MUSICAL GOSSIP.
THE note of preparation for the coming season begins to be sounded. TheM usical Clubs have nearly all resumed their meetings, and the Con- certs will commence ere long. The Philharmonic and Vocal Societies have each issued a circular to their subscribers, detailing their plan of operations for the season. That of the former Society announces a return to the original rule of admission to the concerts, with a slight modifications We ventured to counsel and predict this at the close of the last season. The permission to transfer tickets was found to be attended with no advantage sufficient to outweigh the inconvenience sustained by the regular bearers of the concerts. The reason for with- drawing this privilege is thus stated in the circular-
" At the earnest recommendation of many subscribers to the Philharmonic Concerts, the tickets last year were made transferable in families. The expe- riment received a fair trial ; but inconveniences of SO unpleasant and embarrass- ing a nature were the result, partly arising from a misconception of the rule by which the transfers were to be governed, and in some instances from au inten- tional neglect of it, that not a few of those who had been most desirous of the privilege have since no less strenuously advised its discontinuance."
A transfer of tickets " in families" is found to be, whenever the subscribers so please, a transfer out of families; and it is to the large and indiscriminate influx of new auditors, thus obtaining admission every night, that the " inconveniences " here mentioned are to be ascribed. The Philharmonic audience is, in the best sense of the word, a picked audience, a trained and disciplined audience, a set of exclusives. Batik has nothing to do with the matter, fashion has no concern with it : the selection is made from those who not only will tolerate but admire, or at least affect to admire, the highest efforts of the greatest instrumental writers ; the exclusion is of those who prefer BELLINI to BEETHOVSN, and DONIZETTI to SPOHR. But the late easy
transfer of tickets (for the condition annexed to this privilege was generally disregarded), introduced a set of Opera-house and Concerts room loungers, Who listened with ill-concealed impatience to a long
sinfonia or concerto, and were only kept in check by the habitual quiet and decorum of the room from complimenting the Eroica of BEET- HOVEN or the Jupiter of MOZART with a hiss. These were the ap- plauders of the trashy songs and singers of the late season ; and if they bad not been speedily removed by a recurrence to the old system of personal admissions, the reputation of the Philharmonic Concerts would have been increasingly and fatally damaged.
The new regulation permits the insertion of two ladies' names of the same family on a ticket, which may be used at pleasure by either.
Gentlemen's tickets are not to be transferable. The number of sub- scribers is now restricted to 550; and fifty single tickets, at one guinea each, will be issued to the first applicants for them, helix subscribers.
The Philharmonic Concerts begin on the 27th February, and end on the 12th June.
The usual partial change of Directors has taken place ; but we sus- pect there will be no change of system. We hear of nothing in pre- paration or in progress; nothing is yet even announced for trial.
The circular issued by the Vocal Society refers to its original pro- spectus, and the promise which it held out to the public—a promise
which it claims to have fulfilled, " not only punctually and literally, but largely and liberally ;" and this is no empty boast. The same diligence, the same research, and the same careful preparation, haveap- peered equally in each successive year as in the first of its existence. The last of its concerts in the ensuing season, which falls in Passion Week, will be a sacred one ; and we understand that on that occasion SPOHR'S new oratorio, The Crucifixion, will be produced. Mr. E. TAYLOR, it is well known, has long been engaged in preparing an English version of this magnificent work ; and no common expectation is excited by the anticipated appearance of an oratorio on such a sub- ject from the author of The Last Jtatintent. The Vocal Concerts begin on the 9th January.
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